WildStar Launches, Free Realm Transfers Now Available

Today WildStar officially launched to the public. The sci-fi MMORPG can be purchased through retailers in both North America and Europe.

WildStar is set on the frontier world of Nexus. This planet is littered with the ruins of Eldan, a race that vanished long ago. The ruins have attracted two opposing forces: a scrappy group of rebels known as the Exiles and the galactic empire called the Dominion. Players join one of these factions and help their effort to tame this new planet.

The developer of WildStar is Carbine Studios, founded by many former World of Warcraft dev team members. It shows in the game, from the bright and colorful art style to the faction-versus-faction PvP. They've tried to appeal to the hardcore MMORPG crowd with abundant end-game options like raids, arenas, and battlegrounds. Maybe the most unique end-game experience, though, is a Warplot: a 40v40 PvP battle in which each team constructs their own fortress and must defend it from the enemy.

Carbine celebrated the public release of WildStar by releasing a launch trailer. The trailer introduces you to several locations through Nexus and some of the colorful characters you'll meet there.

Pre-order customers have been playing WildStar since this weekend. A common complaint among them is that certain Realms are overcrowded, resulting in lengthy queue times. Carbine Studios is accommodating players by letting them transfer to certain realms for free. You can make the following transfers for no charge:

NA

Pergo to Rowsdower

Pago to Rowsdower

Widow to Rowsdower

Stormtalon to Mikros

Caretaker to Orias

EU

Hazak to Contagion

Hazak to Gaius

Hazak to Deadstar

Progenitor to Deadstar

Treespeaker to Gaius

Ascendancy to Archon

"Please be aware, there will likely be a rush for Realm transfers when we first open up the service," Carbine said on the official forums. "The transfer process can take time. In some cases it may take up to 24 hours depending on the volume of transactions."

There's no limit to how many free transfers you can perform. However, you can only move each character once every 22 hours. Furthermore, transferred characters can't have any pending pending mail, auctions, commodity orders, or CREDD orders. They also can't belong to any circles, Arena Teams, Warparties, or Guilds before initiating the transfer.

The developers will monitor the free transfers to see how they affect Realm populations. If they decide to disable free transfers for one of these destination Realms, they'll give you two days' notice before doing so.

Additional Realms may be opened in the future as well. Carbine will let you know whether they're transfer targets or not. If not, then transfers will be prevented for 2-4 weeks, to ensure that players can have a fair race for realm-first achievements.